The Labor Department officially announced that only 18,000 jobs were created during the month of June compared to May’s levels. That’s considerably below the 157,000 jobs that payroll-processing firm ADP said on Thursday were added by companies in the private sector.

Our economy is said to need at least 150,000 jobs a month just to keep up with people entering the workforce. So even job growth of 150,000 isn’t good enough.

Worse, not only are newcomers trying to find positions, but there are also 7.084 million fewer jobs in this economy than there were at the 2008 peak. So people who’d like to get their careers started are competing against millions of experienced job seekers looking to just get back into the game.

Now for the really bad news: that 18,000 gain announced by the government yesterday isn’t real.

For one thing, the number of jobs increased in June only because the Labor Department simultaneously revised downward the number of jobs that existed in this country during May. It’s like moving the fences at Citi Field so the Mets players can hit more home runs. It might make Jose Reyes feel better, but it doesn’t actually make him more powerful.

Without the fence-moving operation in the May employment report, the June number — yesterday’s number — would have shown a decline of 26,000 jobs.

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